Cologne Seminars on Ageing "Sensory perception and longevity: Lessons from the worm"

About Shawn' s talk:
Dr. Xu’s lab investigates how organisms detect and process sensory cues — such as temperature, touch, light, sound, odorants and tastants. Sensory cues regulate not only an animal’s behavior, but also its physiology — such as aging and longevity. For example, temperature has a profound impact on aging. Both cold- and warm-blooded animals live longer at lower body temperatures, pointing to a general role of temperature in lifespan regulation. Using C. elegans as a model, Dr. Xu’s group has identified cold-sensing signaling pathways that detect temperature decreases in the environment to extend lifespan, demonstrating that genes actively promote longevity at cold temperatures. This calls into question the century-old view that cold-dependent lifespan extension is simply a passive thermodynamic process. Besides temperature, food represents another major environmental factor that affects aging. Dietary restriction (DR) is considered one of the most effective non-genetic interventions that extend lifespan. Using C. elegans as a model, Dr. Xu’s lab has discovered that food odors suppress DR-induced longevity via an olfactory circuit and a brain-to-gut signal. This highlights the striking phenomenon that not only the actual food abundance but also the perception of food abundance regulate longevity. In this seminar, Dr. Xu will present his recent work on dissecting the mechanisms underlying sensory regulation of aging.